What
a curious, complex novel this is. Let’s start with the title. Late on in the novel
we find a reference to Japan (the book’s setting) as the “land of a thousand
autumns”. So on one level the novel’s title can be interpreted as “Jacob de
Zoet’s life in Japan”, which would be entirely accurate. But on another level
the reference to a thousand autumns – ie a thousand years – hints at the theme
of unnatural longevity, which is a small under-current in the novel, which I
will explore in a bit more detail later on.
Japan
at the end of the 18th century was obsessively insular, and made
only the smallest concessions to contact with the outside world, in the form of
a very small, physically segregated Dutch trading post on an island in the port
of Nagasaki. The eponymous Jacob de Zoet takes a post as a clerk on this
trading post to make his fortune, and the first two hundred or so pages of the novel
follows his introduction to this bizarre, corrupt community. His contact with
the Japanese is very limited, but his eye is caught by a Japanese midwife and
medical student. This section of the novel follows a very traditional, linear,
well researched formula which passed very slowly for me – the central character
is not particularly interesting or appealing, and he has not much to say about
his situation other than to pine for his fiancé back in Holland and
simultaneously lust after the midwife, Orito. This is presented not very
convincingly as a passion which he struggles against despite himself. Quite a
few of the critical online reviews mention giving up on this novel due to the
lack of pace or action, and I very nearly joined them. Jacob is a passive
character who as a first person narrator fails to engage the read.
However,
the novel takes a sudden shift of tone and speed when the story starts to
follow Orito when she joins a convent. When shown from Jacob’s perspective at
the end of his section of the novel, this is a voluntary decision, but we are
quickly shown that in fact a kidnapping. Orito has been sold into captivity by
her step-mother (following her father’s death). Things get much darker quickly –
the convent is populated by women rescued from brothels and freakshows with
various ill-defined deformities, and they are used as sex slaves by the monks
in the neighbouring monastery. Kept pregnant as often as possible, their babies
are stolen from them shortly after birth. We are suddenly in a completely different
kind of novel, lurid, exploitative, just a little bit racist. The pace of the novel
accelerates – Orito tries to escape, and then a complex and desperate rescue
plan is implemented. The outrageously sinister figure behind the baby farm
emerges as we learn even more horrific details about the convent.
Having
set up a scenario where a character we can empathise with and care about is in
desperate danger, the focus then switches again, this time back to Nagasaki and
the arrival of an English ship looking to plunder from the Dutch settlement.
This scene is drawn from real life incident, and provides the catalyst for the
novel’s denouement. There are then some hastily sketched notes for a finale in which
the author appears to have lost all interest.
Having previously read the Bone
Clocks, (ie out of publication sequence) the brief references here to the death
cult being more than just a sick fantasy stand out. Lord Abbott Enomoto, the
cult leader, mentions at one point that he is over 600 years old – there is no
real explanation of this claim, and the reader is given no clue as to whether this
is the claim of a lunatic, or has any substance.
My
problem with this novel is this – well researched historical romances are fine,
but they are not normally my preferred choice of reading.
Rape/murder/infanticide/torture/time travelling thrillers also have a
specialised audience. Mashing the two together, as this novel does, goes beyond
bizarre. I half expected to see some vampires and zombies being woven into the
plot. The case for the defence is that this is just magical realism, but I don’t
buy that. The very dark aspects of this novel go far beyond the lighter feel of
most magical realism novels. I do admire what Mitchell is trying to achieve. He
is reinventing the novel, or at least experimenting with its form to breaking
point. He is a fine writer, and his poetry, clumsily disguised as prose, is superb.
His metaphors and imagery are often remarkable. But building a novel around
such bleak, disturbing themes requires more than a patina of historical realism
and gentle romance. I’d be really
interested in your thoughts.
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